South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid South African President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate with Nelson Mandela. Early life F. W. de Klerk was born in Johannesburg on 18 March 1936. F.W. de Klerk grew up in a political family, with both his father and grandfather serving high office. His father, Jan de Klerk, was a Cabinet Minister and the President of the South African Senate. In this political environment he learned the essential importance of timing. His brother is Dr Willem (Wimpie) de Klerk, a political analyst and one of the founders of the Democratic Party. After finishing school in Krugersdorp, F.W. de Klerk graduated in 1958 from Potchefstroom University with BA and Ll.B degrees (the latter cum laude). At the same time he was awarded the Abe Bailey scholarship (an all-expenses paid educational tour to the United Kingdom). In 1969 he married Marike Willemse, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. Political career From 1961-1972 de Klerk practiced as an attorney in Vereeniging.

During this time, he played an active part in Nationalist Party politics and in local educational affairs. He was offered the chair of Administrative Law at Potchefstroom University, but declined the position when he was elected Member of Parliament for Vereeniging in November 1972. In 1975 he became information officer of the Transvaal National Party. He held several ministerial positions in the Cabinet of President P.W. Botha, including Minister of Post and Telecommunications and Sport and Recreation (1978-1979); Mines, Energy and Environmental Planning (1979-1980); Mineral and Energy Affairs (1980-1982); Internal Affairs (1982-1985); and National Education and Planning (1984-1989). In 1982 he became the Transvaal leader of the National Party after Dr Andries Treurnicht quit the party. In 1985 he was appointed chairman of the Ministers’ Council in the House of Assembly and in 1986 he became the House’s leader. When P.W.

Botha resigned as leader of the National Party in February 1989, he was succeeded by de Klerk. In September he was elected the new State President. He soon announced his policy of reform: he hoped to create a suitable climate for negotiations which would end apartheid and bring about a new Constitutional dispensation for South Africa, based on the principle of one person, one vote. The 1990 reforms In December 1989, de Klerk met with the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress (ANC), Nelson Mandela. On 2 February 1990, de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). On 11 February Mandela was released. Negotiations with Mandela and other party leaders were held for the peaceful end of apartheid and transition to democratic rule. In 1993, De Klerk and Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts at reform in South Africa. After 1994. After the 1994 elections, De Klerk was appointed the Second Vice President in President Mandela’s cabinet.

In 1996 and other National Party members withdrew from their cabinet posts in order to establish the National Party as an effective opposition to the ANC. In 1997 De Klerk retired from politics. Frederik Willem de Klerk | South African History Online South African History Online Home » Biographies » Frederik Willem de Klerk Frederik Willem de Klerk Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on People category: Biographical information Synopsis: State President of South Africa from 1989 to 1994. In 1990 he opened negotiations with previously outlawed anti-apartheid organizations. De Klerk was appointed the Second Vice President in President Mandela’s cabinet. First name: Location of birth: Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa F. W. de Klerk was born in Johannesburg on 18 March 1936. F.W. de Klerk grew up in a political family, with both his father and grandfather serving high office. His father, Jan de Klerk, was a Cabinet Minister and the President of the South African Senate. In this political environment he learned the essential importance of timing.

His brother is Dr Willem (Wimpie) de Klerk, a political analyst and one of the founders of the Democratic Party . After finishing school in Krugersdorp, F.W. de Klerk graduated in 1958 from Potchefstroom University with BA and Ll.B degrees (the latter cum laude). At the same time he was awarded the Abe Bailey scholarship (an all-expenses paid educational tour to the United Kingdom). In 1969 he married Marike Willemse, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. From 1961-1972 de Klerk practiced as an attorney in Vereeniging. During this time, he played an active part in Nationalist Party politics and in local educational affairs. He was offered the chair of Administrative Law at Potchefstroom University, but declined the position when he was elected Member of Parliament for Vereeniging in November 1972. In 1975 he became information officer of the Transvaal National Party. He held several ministerial positions in the Cabinet of President P.W.

Botha , including Minister of Post and Telecommunications and Sport and Recreation (1978-1979); Mines, Energy and Environmental Planning (1979-1980); Mineral and Energy Affairs (1980-1982); Internal Affairs (1982-1985); and National Education and Planning (1984-1989). In 1982 he became the Transvaal leader of the National Party after Dr Andries Treurnicht quit the party. In 1985 he was appointed chairman of the Ministers’ Council in the House of Assembly and in 1986 he became the House’s leader. When P.W. Botha resigned as leader of the National Party in February 1989, he was succeeded by de Klerk. In September he was elected the new State President. He soon announced his policy of reform: he hoped to create a suitable climate for negotiations which would end apartheid and bring about a new Constitutional dispensation for South Africa, based on the principle of one person, one vote.

In December 1989, de Klerk met with the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress (ANC), Nelson Mandela . On 2 February 1990, de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). On 11 February Mandela was released. Negotiations with Mandela and other party leaders were held for the peaceful end of apartheid and transition to democratic rule. In 1993, De Klerk and Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts at reform in South Africa. After 1994. After the 1994 elections, De Klerk was appointed the Second Vice President in President Mandela’s cabinet. In 1996 and other National Party members withdrew from their cabinet posts in order to establish the National Party as an effective opposition to the ANC. In 1997 De Klerk retired from politics. References: F.W. de Klerk | president of South Africa | Britannica.com president of South Africa Alternative Title: Frederik Willem de Klerk F.W. de Klerk Nelson Mandela F.W.

de Klerk, in full Frederik Willem de Klerk (born March 18, 1936, Johannesburg , S.Af.), politician who as president of South Africa (1989–94) brought the apartheid system of racial segregation to an end and negotiated a transition to majority rule in his country. He and Nelson Mandela jointly received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Peace for their collaboration in efforts to establish nonracial democracy in South Africa. F.W. de Klerk, 1990. A. Tannenbaum/Sygma De Klerk was the son of a leading politician. He received a law degree (with honours) from Potchefstroom University in 1958. Soon afterward he began to establish a successful law firm in Vereeniging , becoming active in civic and business affairs there. In 1972 he was elected to Parliament for the National Party .

His legal talents and the respect in which he was held won him a number of key ministerial portfolios, including mines and energy affairs (1979–82), internal affairs (1982–85), and national education and planning (1984–89). He was elected leader of the House of Assembly in 1986. After Pres. P.W. Botha fell ill in January 1989, de Klerk was elected leader of the National Party and successfully opposed Botha’s resumption of office after his recovery. De Klerk was formally elected president by South Africa’s tricameral Parliament on September 14. He owed his political success to the power base he had built up in the Transvaal , where he had been chairman of the provincial National Party from 1982. As president, de Klerk committed himself to speeding up the reform process begun by his predecessor and to initiating talks about a new postapartheid constitution with representatives of what were then the country’s four designated racial groups (white, black, Coloured, and Asian [Indian]).

Though faced with a strengthened right-wing opposition in Parliament (the Conservative Party), following his famous opening address to Parliament on Feb. 2, 1990, de Klerk quickly moved to release all important political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela , and to lift the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania . Thereafter, he frequently met with black leaders, and in 1991 his government passed legislation that repealed racially discriminatory laws affecting residence, education, public amenities, and health care in South Africa. In 1992 he called a referendum in which almost 69 percent of the country’s white voters endorsed his reform policies. That same year de Klerk undertook serious negotiations with Mandela and other black leaders over a proposed new constitution that would enfranchise the black majority and lead to all-race national elections. In the meantime, his government continued to systematically dismantle the legislative basis for the apartheid system. Britannica Stories F.W. de Klerk - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) (born 1936). When F.W.

de Klerk was elected president of South Africa in 1989, he began an era of reform to bring the country’s black majority into the government for the first time. He helped end apartheid, a system of racial segregation and political and economic domination of the country’s nonwhite majority by the white minority. By 1990 he had lifted the bans on the African National Congress, the South African Communist party, and the Pan-Africanist Congress, and in 1991 the last apartheid restriction was repealed. (See also apartheid.) Article History Apartheid - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com A+E Networks Introduction After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation under a system of legislation that it called apartheid. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) would be forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities, and contact between the two groups would be limited. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its laws remained in effect for the better part of 50 years. In 1991, the government of President F.W.

de Klerk began to repeal most of the legislation that provided the basis for apartheid. ‹ › Google Birth of Apartheid Racial segregation and white supremacy had become central aspects of South African policy long before apartheid began. The controversial 1913 Land Act, passed three years after South Africa gained its independence, marked the beginning of territorial segregation by forcing black Africans to live in reserves and making it illegal for them to work as sharecroppers. Opponents of the Land Act formed the South African National Native Congress, which would become the African National Congress (ANC). Did You Know? ANC leader Nelson Mandela, released from prison in February 1990, worked closely with President F.W. de Klerk's government to draw up a new constitution for South Africa. After both sides made concessions, they reached agreement in 1993, and would share the Nobel Peace Prize that year for their efforts. The Great Depression and World War II brought increasing economic woes to South Africa, and convinced the government to strengthen its policies of racial segregation. In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party won the general election under the slogan “apartheid” (literally “separateness”).

Their goal was not only to separate South Africa’s white minority from its non-white majority, but also to separate non-whites from each other, and to divide black South Africans along tribal lines in order to decrease their political power. Apartheid Becomes Law By 1950, the government had banned marriages between whites and people of other races, and prohibited sexual relations between black and white South Africans. The Population Registration Act of 1950 provided the basic framework for apartheid by classifying all South Africans by race, including Bantu (black Africans), Coloured (mixed race) and white. A fourth category, Asian (meaning Indian and Pakistani) was later added. In some cases, the legislation split families; parents could be classified as white, while their children were classified as colored. A series of Land Acts set aside more than 80 percent of the country’s land for the white minority, and “pass laws” required non-whites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. In order to limit contact between the races, the government established separate public facilities for whites and non-whites, limited the activity of nonwhite labor unions and denied non-white participation in national government. Apartheid and Separate Development Dr.

Hendrik Verwoerd, who became prime minister in 1958, would refine apartheid policy further into a system he referred to as “separate development.” The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 created 10 Bantu homelands known as Bantustans. Separating black South Africans from each other enabled the government to claim there was no black majority, and reduced the possibility that blacks would unify into one nationalist organization. Every black South African was designated as a citizen as one of the Bantustans, a system that supposedly gave them full political rights, but effectively removed them from the nation’s political body. In one of the most devastating aspects of apartheid, the government forcibly removed black South Africans from rural areas designated as “white” to the homelands, and sold their land at low prices to white farmers. From 1961 to 1994, more than 3.5 million people were forcibly removed from their homes and deposited in the Bantustans, where they were plunged into poverty and hopelessness.

Opposition to Apartheid Resistance to apartheid within South Africa took many forms over the years, from non-violent demonstrations, protests and strikes to political action and eventually to armed resistance. Together with the South Indian National Congress, the ANC organized a mass meeting in 1952, during which attendees burned their pass books. A group calling itself the Congress of the People adopted a Freedom Charter in 1955 asserting that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white.” The government broke up the meeting and arrested 150 people, charging them with high treason. In 1960, at the black township of Sharpesville, the police opened fire on a group of unarmed blacks associated with the Pan-African Congress (PAC), an offshoot of the ANC. The group had arrived at the police station without passes, inviting arrest as an act of resistance. At least 67 blacks were killed and more than 180 wounded. Sharpesville convinced many anti-apartheid leaders that they could not achieve their objectives by peaceful means, and both the PAC and ANC established military wings, neither of which ever posed a serious military threat to the state.

By 1961, most resistance leaders had been captured and sentenced to long prison terms or executed. Nelson Mandela , a founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC, was incarcerated from 1963 to 1990; his imprisonment would draw international attention and help garner support for the anti-apartheid cause. Apartheid Comes to an End In 1976, when thousands of black children in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for black African students, the police opened fire with tear gas and bullets. The protests and government crackdowns that followed, combined with a national economic recession, drew more international attention to South Africa and shattered all illusions that apartheid had brought peace or prosperity to the nation. The United Nations General Assembly had denounced apartheid in 1973, and in 1976 the UN Security Council voted to impose a mandatory embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa. In 1985, the United Kingdom and United States imposed economic sanctions on the country.

Under pressure from the international community, the National Party government of Pieter Botha sought to institute some reforms, including abolition of the pass laws and the ban on interracial sex and marriage. The reforms fell short of any substantive change, however, and by 1989 Botha was pressured to step aside in favor of F.W. de Klerk. De Klerk’s government subsequently repealed the Population Registration Act, as well as most of the other legislation that formed the legal basis for apartheid. A new constitution, which enfranchised blacks and other racial groups, took effect in 1994, and elections that year led to a coalition government with a nonwhite majority, marking the official end of the apartheid system. Tags Why FW de Klerk let Nelson Mandela out of prison | World news | The Guardian The Observer Why FW de Klerk let Nelson Mandela out of prison On 11 February 1990, the then president of South Africa, FW de Klerk, took the fateful decision to release Nelson Mandela, the charismatic hero of the struggle against apartheid.

Twenty years on, he talks about the circumstances that led him to set the world's most famous political prisoner free, launching a new era in a divided country FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela at a photocall on Wednesday, May 2, 1990 in Cape Town. Photograph: Denis Farrell/Associated Press Alex Duval Smith in Cape Town Saturday 30 January 2010 19.05 EST Close This article is 6 years old After 26 years in captivity, Nelson Mandela did not want to be set free straight away. Two days before his release, the world's most famous political prisoner was taken to see President FW de Klerk in his Cape Town office. The president got a surprise. "I told him he would be flown to Johannesburg and released there on 11 February 1990. Mr Mandela's reaction was not at all as I had expected," said De Klerk.

"He said: 'No, it is too soon, we need more time for preparation.' That is when I realised that long hours of negotiation lay ahead with this man." Twenty years after the event, sitting in the study of his Cape Town home, Frederik Willem de Klerk, now 73, still has the headmasterly style and deliberate speech that the watching world came to know as he played a crucial role in dismantling apartheid. But the winner of the 1993 Nobel peace prize still recalls the enormous leap of faith that was required to negotiate the end of white minority rule with what he describes as the "fundamentally socialistic" African National Congress of the time. Just after 4pm on the date appointed by De Klerk, Mandela, then 71, walked free, holding the hand of his wife, Winnie. The prisoner had lost his argument for a later release date but had persuaded De Klerk to allow him to leave directly from Victor Verster prison, in Paarl, near Cape Town. Mandela held up his fist in an ANC salute. In an instant he switched from being a symbol of the oppressed to the global symbol of courage and freedom that he remains today.

Mandela's release did not signal the end of apartheid. In fact, the white-ruled pariah state was entering the most dangerous chapter in its history since the introduction of racial separateness in 1948. Four hours after leaving prison, Mandela arrived in Cape Town to address thousands of people gathered outside city hall. The impatient crowd had clashed with police and bullets had been fired. But Mandela did not bring a message of appeasement. "The factors which necessitated armed struggle still exist today," he told the cheering onlookers. Mandela called on the international community to maintain its sanctions. "I have carried the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. I hope to live to see the achievement of that ideal. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die," he shouted. With hindsight, Mandela used the fiery address to take up a negotiating position and convince the black majority that he had not made a secret pact with the authorities. De Klerk had his moment of truth nine days earlier, in an address to the all-white parliament that coined the phrase "a new South Africa".

"There were gasps in the house, yes," said De Klerk, "but not at the news of Mr Mandela's release. The gasps came when I announced the unbanning not only of the ANC but also the South African Communist party and of all affiliated organisations, which included the armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe. There were gasps then and, from the far-right party, protests and boos." De Klerk speaks slowly and clearly – and charmlessly. He is a lawyer from a strict, Calvinist tradition in which displays of emotion are a seen as a sign of weakness. His one quirk seems to be the incessant chewing of gum. He has lived in this modern house in Fresnaye for 18 months, having moved into Cape Town with his second wife, Elita, from his farm in Paarl. He points out that, from his garden, he has a view of Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 years in prison. It is a fact. He does not reveal whether it leaves him hot or cold. But radical change requires steely nerves.

De Klerk had become president in September 1989, the son of a National party cabinet minister and the nephew of a prime minister. He grew up with Afrikaner fear in his DNA – the dread that after 400 years on the tip of Africa and the struggle against British colonial rule, his Huguenot descendants would be chased into the sea by the black majority. That fear contributed to policies that built his nation – forced removals to create racially segregated areas and blacks being deprived of their citizenship. It led to "passbooks", introduced to restrict black people's movements beyond those that were necessary to the economy, and separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools, universities and lavatories for blacks, whites, mixed-race "coloureds" and Indians. As he prepared his 2 February speech at his holiday home in Hermanus in the Western Cape, De Klerk claims he had no confidant. "My predecessor, PW Botha, had an inner circle and I did not like it. I preferred decisions to evolve out of cabinet discussions. That way we achieved real co-ownership of our policies." He says his consultative style was a break with National party culture.

But he also claims – in a line of argument that allows him to avoid condemning apartheid outright – that the system unravelled through a gradual process. Even today, he admits only that international sanctions against South Africa "from time to time kept us on our toes". In 1959 prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd's government divided black South Africans into eight ethnic groups and allocated them "homelands" – nations within the nation. The move was a cornerstone of an Afrikaner nationalist dream to create a republic, but it led to international isolation. De Klerk was a vigorous supporter. "I wanted us to take a more adventurous approach to the nation state concept, but the project ultimately failed because the whites wanted to keep too much land for themselves. "The third phase – which coincided with my entering cabinet but was not started by me – was a shift towards reform. It focused on making separate development more acceptable while still believing it was just. But by the early 1980s we had ended up in a dead-end street in which a minority would continue to hold the reins of power and blacks, outside the homelands, really did not have any meaningful political rights. We had become too economically inter-dependent.

We had become an omelette that you could not unscramble." In 1986 the National party abandoned the concept of separate development. "We embraced the idea of a united South Africa with equal political rights for all, but with very effective protection of minorities. Then my predecessor lost his enthusiasm. When I took over, my task was to flesh out what was already a fairly clear vision, but we needed broad support. We needed negotiation." De Klerk moved quickly. In October 1989, a month after succeeding Botha, he released Mandela's political mentor, Walter Sisulu, and seven other prominent Robben Island prisoners. De Klerk says: "When I first met Mandela we did not discuss anything of substance, we just felt each other out. He spent a long time expressing his admiration for the Boer generals and how ingenious they were during the Anglo-Boer war. We did not discuss the fundamental problems or our political philosophies at all. "Later, during the negotiations, it became clear that there was a big divide. On the economic side, the ANC was fundamentally socialistic, the influence of the Communist party was pervasive and they wanted nationalisation.

They also wanted to create an unelected government of national unity which would organise elections. We insisted on governing until a new constitution had been negotiated and adopted by parliament." De Klerk's successive negotiated victories potentially saved South Africa from the post-colonial governance void suffered by many other countries on the continent. They also entrenched minority rights constitutionally and set the country on a capitalist path. "The government that came into power after the April 1994 elections was going to need a budget. It was drafted by our finance minister, Derek Keys, and he convinced them of the necessity to stay within the free-market principles that had been in force in South Africa for decades. The ANC has stuck to these principles and that is one of the great positives." He worries that the left wing of the governing alliance – which supported President Jabob Zuma's offensive to oust Thabo Mbeki in 2008 – will win its current campaign for payback. De Klerk, who retired as deputy president in 1997, also believes South Africa is ripe for a political shake-up, maybe as soon as in next year's municipal elections. "You cannot say we are a healthy, dynamic democracy when one party wins almost two-thirds of the vote.

We need a realignment in politics. I am convinced there will be further splits in the ANC because you cannot keep together people who believe in hardline socialism and others who have become convinced of free-market principles. The 2011 elections will be the opportunity for some much-needed shock therapy. I hope people at those elections will use their right to vote less with emotion and more through reason to express their concerns about the failure of service delivery." The foundation he runs in Cape Town officially exists to defend the constitution but places a strong focus on minority rights – those of Afrikaners and the Afrikaans-speaking "coloured" population. "The ANC has regressed into dividing South Africa again along the basis of race and class. We see an attitude in which for certain purposes all people of colour are black, but for other purposes black Africans have a more valid case in the field of, for example, affirmative action than do brown or Indian South Africans. The legacy of Mandela – reconciliation – urgently needs to be revived." He says some whites still accuse him of having given the country away. Asked what would have happened had he not made the 2 February speech, De Klerk has a ready answer.

"To those people I say it is a false comparison to look at what was good in the old South Africa against what is bad today. "If we had not changed in the manner we did, South Africa would be completely isolated. The majority of people in the world would be intent on overthrowing the government. Our economy would be non-existent – we would not be exporting a single case of wine and South African planes would not be allowed to land anywhere. Internally, we would have the equivalent of civil war." F.W. de Klerk - Biographical F.W. de Klerk The Nobel Peace Prize 1993 Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk Share this: F.W. de Klerk - Biographical Frederik Willem de Klerk was born in Johannesburg on March 18, 1936. He is the son of Senator Jan de Klerk, a leading politician, who became minister in the South African government. His brother Willem is a liberal newspaperman and one of the founders of the Democratic Party. F.W.

de Klerk graduated with a law degree from Potchefstroom University in 1958 and then practiced law in Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In 1969, he married Marike Willemse, with whom he has two sons and a daughter. De Klerk was offered a professorship of administrative law at Potchefstroom in 1972 but he declined the post because he had been elected to Parliament as National Party member for Vereeniging at the time. In 1978, F.W. de Klerk was appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and Social Welfare and Pensions by Prime Minister Vorster. Under Prime Minister P.W. Botha, he held a succession of ministerial posts, including Posts and Telecommunications and Sports and Recreation (1978-1979), Mines, Energy and Environmental Planning (1979-1980), Mineral and Energy Affairs (1980-1982), Internal Affairs (1982-1985), and National Education and Planning (1984-1989).

In 1985, he became chairman of the Minister's Council in the House of Assembly. On December 1, 1986, he became the leader of the House of Assembly. As Minister of National Education, F.W. de Klerk was a supporter of segregated universities, and as a leader of the National Party in Transvaal, he was not known to advocate reform. In February 1989, de Klerk was elected leader of the National Party and in September 1989 he was elected State President. In his first speech after assuming the party leadership he called for a nonracist South Africa and for negotiations about the country's future. He lifted the ban on the ANC and released Nelson Mandela . He brought apartheid to an end and opened the way for the drafting of a new constitution for the country based on the principle of one person, one vote. From Les Prix Nobel . The Nobel Prizes 1993, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1994 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/ Nobel Lectures / The Nobel Prizes .

The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. de Klerk, Willem. The Last Trek — A New Beginning: The Autobiography. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998. Other Sources Benson, Mary. Nelson Mandela, the Man and the Movement. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994. Updated from 1986 edition. Based on interviews by a friend of Mandela since the 1950s. de Klerk, Willem. F. W. de Klerk: The Man in His Time. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1991. By his brother. Gilbey, Emma. The Lady. The Life and Times of Winnie Mandela. London: Cape, 1993. Most comprehensive biography. Harrison, Nancy. Winnie Mandela: Mother of a Nation. London: Gollancz, 1985. Authorised favourable biography. Johns, Sheridan and R. Hunt Davis, Jr., eds. Mandela, Tambo and the ANC: The Struggle Against Apartheid. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Documentary survey. Mandela, Winnie. Part of My Soul. NY & London: Norton, 1984. Edited by Anne Benjamin and Mary Benson. eer, Fatima. Higher Than Hope: The Authorized Biography of Nelson Mandela. NY: Harper, 1990. By family friend, with Mandela’s corrections. Foreword by Winnie Mandela. M Meredith, Martin. Nelson Mandela. A Biography. New York: St, Martin’s, 1998. By an authority on South Africa. Recommended reading. Ottaway, David. Chained Together. Mandela de Klerk, and the Struggle to Remake South Africa. New York: Times Books, 1993. Critical treatment by well-informed journalist. Sparks, Allister. Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa’s Road to Change. New York: Hill & Wang, 1995. By a distinguished South African journalist. Waldmeir, Patti. Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of a New South Africa. London: Viking, 1997.

From Nobel Lectures , Peace 1991-1995, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1999 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel . It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures . To cite this document, always state the source as shown above. Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1993 Addendum, August 1999 As Minister of National Education, F.W. de Klerk was a supporter of segregated universities but also worked for the equalisation of expenditure on pupils from all racial groups. A centrist in the National Party, he led moves in 1982 against the extreme right wing of the party, before being elected as leader of the party in the Transvaal. In February 1989, de Klerk was elected leader of the National Party and in September 1989 he was elected State President. In his first speech after assuming the party leadership he called for a nonracist South Africa and for negotiations about the country's future.

On 2 February 1990 he lifted the ban on the ANC and all other political organisations and announced the release of Nelson Mandela. He brought apartheid to an end and opened the way for the drafting of a new constitution for the country based on the principle of one person, one vote and the entrenchment of basic human rights. After South Africa's first universal democratic elections on 27 April 1994, Mr de Klerk was appointed as Executive Deputy President in South Africa's Government of National Unity. He held this post until June, 1996 when his party withdrew from the Government of National Unity. From then until his retirement from active politics in 1997, Mr De Klerk was the leader of the official opposition. Mr De Klerk published his autobiography 'The Last Trek - a New Beginning' in January 1999 and has now established the F W de Klerk Foundation to work for peace in societies that are divided on cultural, ethnic, religious or linguistic lines.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1999 Share this: To cite this page FW de Klerk: The day I ended apartheid | The Independent Africa FW de Klerk: The day I ended apartheid Twenty years ago today, FW de Klerk addressed South Africa's Parliament &ndash; and stunned the world. Ivan Fallon reveals the extraordinary story behind apartheid's end Tuesday 2 February 2010 00:00 BST Click to follow FW de Klerk: The day I ended apartheid 1/2 2/2 AP Cape Town on Friday, 2 February 1990, 20 years ago today, was an extraordinary place to be. Everyone seemed to be there. The world's press had descended on South Africa's coastal capital in expectation of what would be the biggest news story of the year. Television cameras roamed the town, but as the day wore on they concentrated outside the State Parliament where a momentous event was expected to be announced. In Greenmarket Square and along Grand Parade in the heart of the city, wealthy young whites mixed happily with black demonstrators carrying the black, green and gold flags of the banned African National Congress (ANC) party.

Archbishop Tutu was at St George's Cathedral with his flock, which included more whites than blacks, ready to celebrate a happening which he seemed to regard as the Second Coming. What they were all waiting for was the release of Nelson Mandela, icon of the anti-apartheid movement for two decades, which President FW de Klerk was widely expected to herald that morning in the annual opening address to parliament, traditionally the occasion for big announcements in South African history. Mandela, it was generally hoped, would complete his long walk to freedom a few hours after that, and no newspaper or TV station could afford to miss it. In fact de Klerk had no intention of freeing Mandela that day. He had something even bigger on his mind, something he knew would take even the keenest observers of his presidential style by surprise. As MPs, ambassadors and other dignitaries gathered for the formal opening of parliament, only a handful of cabinet ministers were in the know, and they had been sworn not even to tell their wives – de Klerk only confided in his wife Marike on the way to parliament that morning.

De Klerk, in the job since September 1989, was about to announce the official end of apartheid, the system which the National Party, which included his Afrikaner forebears, had given birth to 41 years before and whose brutality and injustice millions had demonstrated against in every capital in the free world. He wanted maximum impact and publicity for his speech, which he had been working on for months, and he didn't want the distraction of Mandela's pending release getting in the way of it. "I had decided to play that down in my speech," says de Klerk in his Cape Town home 20 years later. "I knew the world's press was there, not because they wanted to hear me speak, but because they wanted to witness the release of Nelson Mandela. But I wanted them to focus on the fundamental decisions we had taken and to judge them on their merits, and not have the whole package overshadowed." Mandela himself was the only man in the world, other than de Klerk, who didn't want him to be released that day. He wasn't yet ready for it, and told government ministers that he needed more time to prepare.

After all, he had been in prison for 27 years – what was another week or two? But even he had no inkling of what de Klerk had in store for his party and people that day. For years de Klerk's presidential predecessors had used their opening addresses for the purposes of bringing in and then strengthening the creeping laws of apartheid, which basically held that whites and blacks should live entirely separately, the whites in the rich lands of South Africa, the blacks in the desperately poor homelands carved out for them. To enforce the principles, the regimes of Hans Strijdom (de Klerk's uncle), Hendrik Verwoerd, John Vorster and, to a lesser extent, P W Botha, had brought in act after act which would eventually institutionalise one of the most repressive and hated regimes of the second half of the 20th century. It was in this hall, on this same occasion, that announcements heralded the Bantu Education Act, the pass laws, the banning of political parties, detention without trial, the death penalty just for "furthering the aims" of communism, the banning of free speech, restrictions on trade unions, and many others.

Black Africans had basically lost nearly all of their human rights over that period. Nothing in De Klerk's Afrikaner background suggested he was about to reverse all that. He had been in the job just four months and was still an unknown quantity, but what was known about him suggested he was no reformer. After a lifetime in the National Party (he was 54), he was generally regarded as on the verkrampte, or unenlightened, side of the party, although he always saw himself around the middle, neither verkrampte or verligte (enlightened), but certainly conservative. "Negative expectations hinged on the fear that FW, far from being an innovator, was a hidebound disciple of apartheid," said his own brother, Willem, later. "He never formed any part of the enlightened movement in South Africa. It was even rumoured he had tried to put the brakes on all the reforms PW Botha had made." Mandela later remarked that he placed no hopes in the address that day because de Klerk was "trapped in apartheid" and was too concerned that his power-base was being eroded by defections to the Conservative Party to make any radical moves.

None of them knew that for a year De Klerk had been working on a package of measures which, as he says now, "would go much further than anyone expected and was intended to gain the moral high ground". He had rejected the safer route of a gradual dismantling of the system basically because "the world would have thought we were playing games", and time was against him. The fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of 1989 was also a critical factor: "That took the sting out of the tail out of the Communist Party." It did the same for the ANC, many of whose leaders, including Presidents Mbeki and Zuma, had trained in the Soviet Union. De Klerk says his instincts were "to go for the whole package – as one of my colleagues advised, when you cut off the tail of the dog, better do it in one stroke". He had become leader of the National Party exactly a year before when PW Botha, suffering from a major stroke, had reluctantly agreed to split his role, retaining the state presidency but giving up the party leadership.

In the party election which followed, de Klerk ran as the centrist candidate, narrowly beating his verligte opponent Barend du Plessis (the real verligte candidate, the charismatic Pik Botha, who was much favoured by Western and African leaders, was eliminated in the first round). De Klerk's relationship with President Botha, never easy, soon deteriorated as the president became increasingly irascible as well as forgetful. Botha was ill, but stubbornly stayed, making de Klerk's life more and more difficult. "He was giving me the cold shoulder. I was supposed to be the third minister in the government but I was not kept informed of events: for instance I didn't know there had been secret meetings with Mandela until after I became president. As time went on, and Mr Botha became more ill and difficult, there was crisis after crisis. He began to forget things, agreeing to something in the morning and then saying he hadn't been consulted in the afternoon." South Africa was heading for an election in September 1989, its last in the old form, and just three weeks before it, the Botha situation came to a head.

The foreign minister Pik Botha, working hard to repair South Africa's desperate image with the rest of the world, asked de Klerk to accompany him on a visit to see Kenneth Kaunda, president of Zambia. He needed his support for the independence discussions on Namibia, which South Africa was about to give up after more than 70 years' rule. Pik believed he had the president's approval for the visit, but when Kaunda announced the date (August 28), PW hit the roof, accusing his two ministers of treason. "PW was furious," says de Klerk ruefully. "He announced he would have to discipline us for doing it without his permission." It was the final straw. De Klerk summoned all the ministers he could find to his house in Pretoria and asked for a united front to force the president to take sick leave. When he went to see Botha in Cape Town to tell him this, "he used the opportunity to give us a long lecture and called a full cabinet". It was to be his last.

De Klerk opened the discussion in the cabinet on the part of the ministers, and presented the sick leave option, which he thought would be more palatable than the alternative, which would be a very public sacking (Botha had done much the same to his predecessor, John Vorster, 11 years before). "He went around the table and asked every member of the cabinet for their opinion, and everyone said they supported my proposal," says de Klerk. "He got cross and said he was as healthy as any of us, and many of us were taking more pills than he was. Then he went outside, and when he came back in he said, 'Gentlemen, I am resigning.'" De Klerk was elected state president after the general election and was inaugurated, rather more modestly, on the same spot where Mandela would have South Africa's most celebrated inauguration five years later. The changes began immediately: he appointed the first woman ever to serve in a South African cabinet, and brought in a number of industrialists to help deal with an economic situation which was in crisis, largely a result of sanctions and piled-up debts.

He also lifted the restrictions on protest marches, including a huge one led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and ended many of the petty restrictions of apartheid, including segregated beaches, parks, lavatories and restaurants. A bolder move was the release of political prisoners, starting with Govan Mbeki, father of (President) Thabo Mbeki, followed by all the ANC leaders who had been imprisoned with Mandela in the so-called "Rivonia trial" in 1964. Soon the entire leadership – the actual ANC leaders, Oliver Tambo, and his deputy, Mbeki, were running the party from exile in Lusaka – was given its freedom, with the exception of Mandela. "Everyone behaved themselves, and there had been no return to violence," he says. The way was now open for the release of Mandela. In December de Klerk sent for him and Mandela was smuggled in through the basement garage of the presidential office in Cape Town (later occupied by Mandela), and the officials withdrew to leave the two of them on their own. Each later recorded they sat for a moment "weighing each other up".

Like everyone else, de Klerk had no real idea what Mandela looked like, because there had been only a few secretly snatched photos of him for 20 years. He found himself staring at a man much taller than he expected, slightly stooped with age (he was 71), and dignified, courteous and utterly self-confident. Up to this point he had regarded him as "a grain of sand trapped in the oyster", the almost mythical hero who had posed so serious an irritant to his predecessors. Now here he was in the flesh. "So this," de Klerk recalls saying to himself, "is Nelson Mandela." By the end of the meeting he had come to a remarkably similar conclusion as Mandela, both later consciously echoing Mrs Thatcher's famous remark about Gorbachev: "Here was a man I could do business with." Next time they met, de Klerk promised, they would discuss his release. Mandela for his part wrote to his ANC colleagues in Lusaka that he had "taken the measure of Mr de Klerk, just as I had with new prison commanders when I was on Robben Island".

De Klerk, he wrote, seemed to represent "a true departure from the National Party politicians of the past". In short, he was a man "we could do business with". They did not meet again until after de Klerk's opening address, but behind the scenes there was frenetic activity as negotiations for the release accelerated. Both men had separately, and for different reasons, decided there was no alternative but to talk. Mandela later recorded that "it simply did not make sense for both sides to lose millions of lives in a conflict that was unnecessary", while de Klerk had concluded that he could not win a military victory either and must negotiate with the enemy before the economy collapsed. All of this was leading up to his 2 February speech, which de Klerk worked on in a long break over Christmas and the New Year at his holiday home in the seaside resort of Hermanus, east of Cape Town. Several weeks before, he had taken his cabinet for a bosberaad, a conference in the bush where for days they discussed and debated the increasing limited options facing South Africa and its ruling white government. Everyone now accepted there had to be change, and that it had to incorporate negotiations with the ANC.

The reality of a full democracy at some stage in the future now seemed inevitable, but none of them had any inkling of how far de Klerk, who had made statement after statement saying he would not accept majority rule, would go down that road. Even he had not made that leap yet. Walking on the beaches over Christmas, de Klerk reflected on the journey which had taken him here, and the rocky and uncertain fate which lay ahead. His Huguenot ancestors arrived in the Cape in 1686 and the story of the de Klerks since had been, as he says, "the story of the emerging Afrikaner nation". They were farmers who took part in the legendary Voortek, when their leader Piet Retief led his column of ox wagons over the Drakensberg Mountains to escape British rule. Three de Klerks died with Retief in the great kraal of the Zulu chief Dingane in 1837, an event so deeply embedded in Afrikaner culture that 16 December, the day of the massacre, was named "The Day of the Vow" or "Dingane's Day", which is still celebrated.

His grandfather was twice captured by the British in the Boer War, and later became a founder member of the National Party in 1914. De Klerk's own father was a minister in Verwoerd's government, and FW himself became an MP at 37 and was appointed to Vorster's cabinet five years later. Nobody's Afrikaner credentials were stronger than his. "For many years I supported the concept of separate states," he says now. "I believed it could bring justice for everyone, including the blacks who would determine their own lives inside their own states. But by the early 1980s I had concluded this would not work and was leading to injustice and that the system had to change. I still believed in 1990 that the independent states had a place, but in the end the ANC had put so much pressure on them that they didn't want to go on. Had we offered Buthelezi a Zululand with Richards Bay harbour, he would have accepted that.

But the whites wanted to hang on to as much as they could and were too greedy." He had, he says, "long come to the realisation that we were involved in a downward spiral of increasing violence and we could not hang on indefinitely. We were involved in an armed struggle where there would be no winners. The key decision I had to take now, for myself, was whether to make a paradigm shift." By the time he was back in Cape Town in early January, he had taken that decision. He finally took the full cabinet into his confidence just two days before his speech, swearing them to secrecy which was vital if he was going to achieve his objective of maximum surprise and impact. His press advisers were told to play down expectations, rather than build them up. In the outside world, the only subject anyone wanted to talk about was Mandela's imminent release. The media was arriving in great numbers, including the biggest names in the business: Ted Koppel decided to broadcast his entire ABC Nightline programme from South Africa for a whole week, and famous anchormen, editors and correspondents all took up residence in the crowded city. It was slated to be the event of the decade – except it didn't happen that day.

The media would have to sit around – no hardship in mid-summer Cape Town – for another nine days before Mandela walked free nine days later. "We had planned for February 2 in great detail, and it is remarkable it didn't leak," says de Klerk now. "My objective that day was to convince both our friends and our foes alike that we had made the paradigm shift." That morning, he says, he awoke with a "sense of destiny – I knew South Africa would never be the same again but I also believed I was doing the right thing at the right time." In the parliament, the public gallery was crowded, and television cameras relayed the proceedings live to South Africans who had stopped to watch and listen. De Klerk calmly waited while the speaker opened the session with the traditional prayer. Then he walked over to the podium where his speech was already in place and began, speaking half in English, half in Afrikaans.

When he sat down 30 minutes later, the ANC and 30 other political parties, including the Communist Party, had been unbanned unconditionally; the death penalty was suspended; the state of emergency was lifted; trade unions were allowed to function freely; all political prisoners were to be released immediately and restrictions on political exiles were lifted; and, perhaps most importantly of all, de Klerk opened the way for South Africa's first fully democratic election in 300 years by promising "a totally new and just constitutional dispensation in which every inhabitant will enjoy equal rights, treatment and opportunity". He didn't mention Mandela until late in the speech and only then in terms of the potentially important part he could play in negotiations, and the fact that he had already declared himself willing to participate in peaceful discussions (Mandela, offered his release five years before on condition he renounce violence, had flatly refused). But now, de Klerk said, he had taken a firm decision to release Mandela unconditionally, but not yet: "unfortunately a short passage of time is unavoidable". That would be days rather than weeks, he indicated, to a huge groan from the press.

He ended with an impassioned invitation to the ANC and all the other parties: "Walk through the open door and take your place at the negotiating table." In short, in half an hour, de Klerk had announced a commitment to a full democracy, with majority rule in a unitary state which would include the homelands, an independent judiciary, a commitment to equal justice for all under a human rights manifesto, no discrimination, and a free economy. The entire edifice of apartheid, so hated around the world, had been dismantled in a single speech. He didn't have to wait long for the reaction. The opposition Democratic party roared its approval while there was disbelief along his own backbenches and fury from the Conservatives. The veteran editor, Allister Sparks, given a preview of the speech earlier in the day, gasped: "My God, he's done it all." On the streets of Cape Town and in the townships, wild celebrations went on into the night. Newspaper sellers quickly sold out of the Cape Argus with its headline "ANC UNBANNED", while Tutu giggled: "Just wait till de Klerk sits down with Tambo.

They will discover how South African they both are!" Messages of congratulations began to pour in from world leaders: from Margaret Thatcher, one of the few remaining relatively sympathetic voices, and presidents Bush, Soares, Mitterand, Kaunda and the UN secretary-general, Perez de Cuellar. There were even rumours the Pope might pay South Africa a visit, inconceivable only an hour before (he never did). Mandela, watching on TV, later remarked: "It was a breathtaking moment, for in one sweeping action he had virtually normalised the situation in South Africa. Our world had changed overnight." There would be no more arrests for being a member of the ANC, no more persecution for carrying its green, yellow and black banner and "for the first time in almost 30 years, my picture and my words, and those of all my banned comrades, could appear in South African newspapers". Not everyone was pleased of course. The reactionary Conservative Party and the right-wing of his own party vowed immediate revenge and called for a vote of no confidence. Die Patriot, organ of the Conservative Party, accused de Klerk of treason and naïveté towards the communists, still its bête-noir.

In far-off Pretoria and the Afrikaans heartland in the Orange Free State, there would be rallies where demonstrators chanted "Hang de Klerk, hang Mandela" and for good measure, in case they felt left out, "hang the Jews". But the die was cast and there was now no going back. Three years later Mandela and de Klerk went together to Oslo to receive their Nobel Peace Prizes. And a year after that, South Africa got its first black president. De Klerk today: Confidant to current leaders FW de Klerk, now aged 73, lives in Cape Town with his second wife Elita, his comfortable house distinguishable only from his wealthy neighbours by the security guards who alternate between him and his fellow ex-president, Nelson Mandela. His big interest today is the Global Leadership Fund, which he founded five years ago with the object of improving political leadership around the world.

Its membership comprises some 24 former world leaders, including Joe Clark (Canada), Michel Rocard (France), Mike Moore (New Zealand) and Jose Maria Aznar (Spain), an extraordinary network of former heads of government who want to give something back by way of mentoring, guiding and helping new leaders who have no experience of government or how to cope with the hundreds of international agencies who turn up to clamour for their attention. The GLF has no agenda, and seeks nothing back (it even pays its own expenses from donations), often encouraging leaders to take credit for initiatives it has created for them. Countries such as Colombia and East Timor have acknowledged the GLF's support, but for many others it remains confidential. Apartheid: Its roots and demise 1948. After decades of conflict between gold and diamond-hungry Brits and Boers – and a rising nationalist movement headed by the African National Congress (ANC) – a policy of apartheid (separateness) is adopted when the National Party takes power. 1960. Seventy black demonstrators are killed at Sharpeville. The ANC, which has responded to apartheid with civil disobedience led by Nelson Mandela, is banned.

The following year, Mandela starts a campaign of sabotage with an ANC military wing. 1964. After his arrest two years earlier and subsequent imprisonment, Mandela is handed a life sentence. He spends 18 of his 27 years in prison on Robben Island, where he studies law and seals his status as the hero of the anti-apartheid movement. 1976. Black anger boils over in riots that become known as the Soweto uprising – South Africa's largest and deadliest anti-apartheid protests. An estimated 600 people, including child demonstrators, are killed in clashes that rage for three weeks. 1990. A year after FW de Klerk replaces PW Botha as president and segregation begins to end, the ANC is unbanned and Mandela is set free. Nine days earlier, FW de Klerk announces the end to apartheid and the coming of a "new South Africa" to a stunned all-white parliament. 1994. Mandela becomes President as the ANC wins South Africa's first non-racial elections. The country is restored to the Commonwealth, sanctions are lifted and South Africa takes a seat at the UN General Assembly after an absence of 20 years. Simon Usborne

Question: Which party did F W de Klerk represent as South African president?
Answer: National Party